Video: Recovered firearms are melted down by police

Police officers transported all firearms and ammunition that were handed in during Leicestershire Police’s two week firearms amnesty, including at least 10 handed in in Hinckley, to a smelters in Melton Mowbray

More than 130 firearms that were handed into Leicestershire Police were melted down and turned into manhole covers.

Police officers transported all firearms and ammunition that were handed in during Leicestershire Police’s two week firearms amnesty, including at least 10 handed in in Hinckley, to a smelters in Melton Mowbray.

Firearms such as rifles, pistols and shotguns, were then dropped into a machine and melted down at temperatures of 1,500 degrees celsius.

Sergeant Richard Whileman said: “It is extremely important that the weapons that were handed in during the amnesty are melted down and turned into something else.

“We can then be confident that they won’t get into the wrong hands and used in crime.”

The firearms amnesty was held in September last year to give people an opportunity to surrender unlawfully held and unwanted firearms and ammunition.

It is believed that a number of firearms are held by people in innocence and ignorance of their illegality.

They could be in the home, be overlooked or forgotten, or someone could have come into possession of one through the death of a relative."